By Jeremy Rolleston|2011-11-22T09:00:21+00:00November 22nd, 2011|Habits|
I want to share with you today a little bit of information about something that is either your best friend or your worst master. It is your constant companion. It will either work for you or against you. It will push you forward or drag you backwards. In fact, it is the servant of all great people, and alas, of many failures as well. It is completely at your command and once set-up it is easily managed. In fact, if you handed things many of the things you did over to it, it would be able to save you a lot of trouble and do them quickly, correctly and automatically. Run it for profit or ruin, it doesn’t mind, even though it isn’t a machine. Manage it firmly and train it and it will place the world at your feet, but be easy with it, and it will destroy you.
What is it ? … it is HABIT.
‘The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act, we strengthen the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably, thought and act.’
(Orison Swett Marden)
Habits are those behaviours that we acquire, repeat regularly and continually do, and that then become almost involuntary and automatic. An example of this might be (on the negative) nail biting and (on the positive) the habit of looking both ways before we cross the street. The point about habits is that it you don’t have to think about them, so they can be both positive and negative.
When we’re engaging in a habit, we’re acting subconsciously. Psychologically this is because our brain develops blueprints/templates for how it will act to certain stimuli and situations – neural pathways that it runs so that it doesn’t need to process everything consciously.
So you can see how our habits can be the best of servants (and help us) or the worst of masters (and hinder us).
So here’s 7 things to know about habits so you can use them to serve you well.
1. A habit must be fed in order to grow
To overcome a bad habit you must starve it. And to build a new one you must feed it. Pretty simple really. So feed only the habit you want to build and grow.
2. Little things add up to big things – habits build destinies
Since our habits can help us or hinder us, you can understand that when we make little changes and put them on auto-pilot, they can add up to big changes. Think of the benefit you’d gain, for example, if you made a habit of getting up a few minutes earlier in the morning. Or of taking the stairs instead of the elevator, saving a bit of money each week, paying your bills on time, drinking water throughout the day, staying in touch with friends, exercising daily, doing a bit of reading every day, writing in a journal, always being prepared to try to push out that last repetition, always looking at your goals and reminding yourself of your ‘why’ and so on. Imagine you actually do each of these activities without thinking about it or without the mucking about in your mind that goes on when you’re trying to decide whether to initiate an action. Your good or bad habits can shape your future. What you do each day will, in many ways, determine what you become permanently. So use your habits for you not against you !
3. Habits determine your focus
Your habits will determine where you direct your energy and focus. Will you focus on what can be or what can’t be?Will you invest into your future or will your laziness pay off now? Will you value relationships or time on the X-box? Your habits don’t only influence but determine your focus.
4. In forming good habits there can be no exceptions
Unfortunately when establishing a habit there can be no luxury as “I’ll let it go just this once”. That’s a chink in the armour, a crack in the wall you are building. Because excuses grow and grow. The time you let is slip by will mean that little voice in your head allows you to let it slip just than one extra time. You know it will. So there can be no exceptions. Just as the quote above says – a great cable that binds our thoughts and acts irrevocably.
5. You are in control – you determine your habits
Be encouraged. Habits can be changed. New habits formed. New neural pathways developed. New patterns formed. That is up to you. It is just a decision that you make that you then need to back up with the cold, hard action. But you are always in control. It doesn’t happen by magic – you control if you will feed a good habit or a bad habit. It’s never easy and in writing this I am exactly the same as you when I think of lots of things I’d like to do better or not do. Hey, life isn’t supposed to be some arduous, mechanical daze of instituting habits. But, the fact is, they do have a big influence on our lives; they are either our best of friends or the worst of masters; and we are in control of that!
6. To change a habit – make it simple and doable.
Just try and change one habit at a time and make your change simple. To establish your habit, involve only one or two rules not a dozen. For example, the habit of exercising once a day for at least 30 minutes is easier to follow than exercising on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays by doing yoga the first day and mountain biking the third day, except when its’ a rainy day, in which case you’ll do … Simple rules lead to habits; simple rules you can then put into practice consistently for a good month so you create a good habit and make it stick.
And make it ‘doable’. For example, if you want to go for a walk every morning for an hour, the habit might be great, but the length of time you need might cause you to subconsciously undermine your best efforts and motivations. Therefore, keep the walk short in the beginning – say, 10 minutes. Do it every day for a couple of weeks until you’ve firmly installed the habit. Then, extend the time so you do the hour of walking – you’ll find that’s the easy part.
7. Use leverage and strategies eg replace lost needs
Use whatever leverage and strategies you can to help you establish your habit and give you that extra push / motivation. Give a friend $100 on the condition that s/he returns it to you only when you’ve completed 30 days without fail. Make a public commitment to everyone you know that you’re going to stick with the good habit. Offer yourself a reward if you stick to the habit for a month. Coat your nails with bitters, put band-aids over the ends of them, or put a sugar-free lollypop in your mouth to stop you biting your nails. Make it hard for yourself to stay in bed and press the snooze button by moving your alarm to the other side of the bed and set the lights on a timer. Put a lock on fridge and give the key to your partner. Whatever it is and whatever leverage / strategy you come up with to break the cycle and establish your new habit. And don’t forget to replace lost needs. For example, if you opened up your computer and started removing hardware, what would happen? Chances are your computer wouldn’t work. Similarly, you can’t just delete habits without replacing the needs they meet. To give up TV, for example, you might need to find a new way to relax, socialise or get information.
My challenge
What habits help you ? What habits hinder you ? Will you decide to change anything today ?
